“He won’t come out if you threaten him,” he heard the Lady Premiere say sharply. Then her voice, crooning softly, “Come on, dear. It’s all right. Everybody makes mistakes. Just come on out and tell us where the real magic is, and we’ll give you a nice present. Maybe something hot to drink, or a new pair of mittens.”
There was something very disturbing about hearing the Lady Premiere’s voice so soft and slippery sounding. It was off, somehow, like seeing a bunch of roses laid over a rotting corpse.
“I’ll give him a poker in his stomach,” the alchemist ranted. “I’ll give him slugs in his eye sockets!”
“Would you shut up!” the Lady Premiere snapped.
Mo swung his legs off the desk and stood up, smashing his hat down on his forehead.
“You see?” he whispered to the boy, pointing to his head. “You need one of these. Would keep you nice and toasty, that’s for sure. Heat goes right out your head, see, if you don’t have a hat to keep it all swirly and whirly warm.”
The boy pointed toward the courtyard, then pointed to himself, then made another frantic no-no-no gesture.
“Don’t worry,” Mo said, winking. “Your secret’s safe with me.” He made a little X over his chest, directly above the place where his enormous heart was thumping, and clomped out into the courtyard to see what all the fuss was about.
The Lady Premiere and the alchemist were standing in the middle of the swirling mist. Mo felt a little colder as he approached the Lady Premiere. It was no wonder she wore those enormous fur coats with all the animal tails, Mo thought, coats that reached from the nape of her neck to the cobblestones. Privately he suspected she had ice running through her veins instead of blood.
But he forced himself to say cheerfully, “Evening, boss. Can I help you with something?”
The Lady Premiere turned her large violet eyes on him: eyes that were rumored to be the most beautiful in all the city. “We are looking for a boy,” she said coldly. “Have you seen one?”
“A boy?” Mo repeated. He dug a nail under the band of his hat and scratched his head. It was at times like these that the reputation for being an idiot was quite useful.
“Yes, a boy,” the alchemist exploded. “The boy who was with me earlier. The useless, treacherous, evil . . .” Then he trailed off and began to moan. “He’s trying to ruin me. That’s what he wants. He wants to keep me unofficial forever. After all I’ve done for him . . . raised him like my own son . . .”
“Stop your moaning,” the Lady Premiere said sharply. “I can’t stand it. Besides, perhaps it’s true what the boy said. Perhaps there really was a mix-up. We must go to Mr. Gray at once and retrieve the magic.”
“There was no mix-up,” the alchemist muttered darkly. “He stole the magic and intends to pass it off as his own. He means to ruin me. After all I’ve done! When I find him, I’ll skin him from the toes up! No—from the ears down! No, from the fingers—”
“Enough!” the Lady Premiere thundered. Her voice sounded through the courtyard, loud as a rifle shot. Even Mo jumped a little.
The Lady Premiere took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and counted to three. As always, when she felt her anger bubbling and rising inside of her like a hot, dark dust, the smell of cabbage and damp socks seemed to rise up too. It was the terrible, choking smell of the house in Howard’s Glen, floating out of the past to torture her. . . .
She pushed the thought quickly out of her mind. Those days were over, dead, buried. She had made sure of that. Instead she imagined her closets lined in deep purple velvet, and all the beautiful jewels glittering on her shelves, and the ninety-two pairs of shoes she had lined up neatly on beautiful oak shoe racks, and it calmed her down somewhat. Her things—her rooms—the whisper of silk sheets and the murmurings of an attentive staff—protected her from the trials and idiocies of the outside world.
“Do you have the counterfeit box?” the Lady Premiere asked more calmly, opening her eyes.
The alchemist nodded.
“Give it here.”
He hesitated for only a second, then passed over Mr. Gray’s mother’s wooden jewelry box, which Will had accidentally taken from the table.
The Lady Premiere said to Mo, “Guard, open the gate.”
Mo moved obediently to the hand crank and began slowly winding open the gate. The Lady Premiere strode quickly toward the street, then paused, turning back to the alchemist, who was still shaking his head and muttering something about “unofficial” and “ruined.”
“Well?” she said. “Come along.”
“Me? You want me to go with you?” The alchemist forced a laugh. He would never admit it, but he had always been a little bit afraid of the tall, thin, somber Mr. Gray, who kept company with the dead and knew all their secrets. “But I couldn’t possibly—at this late hour—quite out of the question—the demands of my profession—”